Silent repetition of the Lord’s name leads you to the constant flow of one idea of God. That is meditation. When you go beyond, where God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, it is also meditation. Repetition gives you focus and enables the mind to reach a stage where God is beyond form and formless. On my trip to Tibet, a lady used to chant different names of the Lord each day. I told her, “You are digging seven different holes and going nowhere. Instead, if you dug in one place continuously, you could go deep.” She replied, “I am pleasing the Lord in His different forms.” The Lord’s name is used to maintain one idea, not many. A laser-like focus will penetrate the granite rock — our hard heads. Then, the repetition, which is a rocket booster, will drop away. You are now free in outer space, away from the gravitational pull of ignorance. The irony is that the repetition of the name lets you become one with the Lord and, then later, becomes a distraction that has to drop away. — Satish Daryanani
